Tag: mental health

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Researchers Describe Extremist ‘Psychological Signature’

On By ModernMedia

Researchers at Cambridge University have laid out a ‘psychological signature’ for extremist behaviour.
These extremist behaviours  support violence in the name of ideology, and encompass social, political or religious attitudes. The researchers say that particular behavioural traits and unconscious cognition in the brain make certain individuals more susceptible to extremist behaviour.

These mental factors include poorer working memory and slower “perceptual strategies” (the unconscious processing of changing stimuli, eg shape and colour), and also tendencies towards impulsivity and sensation seeking.

The researchers found that social conservatism is linked to slower but more accurate unconscious decision-making, whereas liberal thinking is linked to faster but less accurate ‘perceptual strategies’.
More dogmatic people are prone to impulsivity but are slower in processing perceptual evidence.
Previous approaches to identifying radicalisation and extremism involved screening individuals by age and gender. 
“I’m interested in the role that hidden cognitive functions play in sculpting ideological thinking,” said lead author Dr Leor Zmigrod, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

“Many people will know those in their communities who have become radicalised or adopted increasingly extreme political views, whether on the left or right. We want to know why particular individuals are more susceptible.”
“By examining ‘hot’ emotional cognition alongside the ‘cold’ unconscious cognition of basic information processing we can see a psychological signature for those at risk of engaging with an ideology in an extreme way,” Zmigrod said.

“Subtle difficulties with complex mental processing may subconsciously push people towards extreme doctrines that provide clearer, more defined explanations of the world, making them susceptible to toxic forms of dogmatic and authoritarian ideologies.”

 Added Zmigrod: “There appear to be hidden similarities in the minds of those most willing to take extreme measures to support their ideological doctrines. Understanding this could help us to support those individuals vulnerable to extremism, and foster social understanding across ideological divides.”
This research revisited 334 participants from a previous study where participants performed 37 cognitive tasks and were assessed on 22 personality traits. They added a further 16 tests
Demographics only weakly predicted extremist behaviour. For example, dogmatism was associated with slower perceptual ‘evidence accumulation’, and lower social risk-taking and agreeableness but greater impulsivity and ethical risk-taking. Adding the psychological signatures to demographics increased the predictive power for dogmatism from 1.53% to 23.6%. 
Political conservatism and nationalism was linked to ‘caution’ in unconscious decision-making, as well as when rewards are less valuable later, and slightly reduced strategic information processing. Personality traits for conservatism and nationalism included greater goal-directedness, impulsivity and reward sensitivity, and lower social risk-taking. For these ideologies, demographics only had a predictive power of less than 8%, but including the psychological signature boosted it to 32.5%.

In all of the ideologies examined, ‘extreme pro-group action’, including violence against others, had a similar psychological signature.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0424

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Video Gamers Self-report Feelings of Wellbeing

On By ModernMedia

Volunteers playing video games reported feelings of wellbeing, and video games did not appear to negatively impact players’ wellbeing, a study by the University of Oxford has found.

The researchers sought to investigate the validity of a widespread perception that playing video games may result in addiction and poor mental health. There has been extensive prior research establishing the varying cognitive benefits of playing different types of video games.

The researchers obtained online gameplay statistics from game producers Electronic Arts and Nintendo, then surveyed over 3000 players of two popular games: Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. These popular games are more ‘relaxed’ than the type of intense action-themed games that often come up in discussions about video games and mental health. 

The surveys queried players on their wellbeing, their motivations and need satisfaction as they played their video games. Each of the volunteers had their gameplay time recorded by the respective game producers. On analysis, the researchers found that players reported slightly more positive responses than expected, with a slight positive correlation between gameplay time and wellbeing.

The researchers stated that the game producers’ only involvement was providing anonymised telemetry data. They also noted that they did not suggest a causal relationship between subjective wellbeing and how much time a person plays video games, only that playing video games does not seem to negatively impact the wellbeing of players.

Instead of considering the amount of time playing, the researchers suggest that the focus should be on why people play games to begin with. The researchers suggest that people who monitor the playing time of others should rather consider if the game is meeting their needs.

A recent, separate study revealed that boys with low physical activity who regularly played video games at 11 had fewer depressive symptoms three years later.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Niklas Johannes et al. Video game play is positively correlated with well-being, Royal Society Open Science (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.202049

Categories : Mental Health Metabolic DisordersTags :

Why Antipsychotic Drugs Cause Weight Gain

On By ModernMedia

A University of Pittsburgh study has discovered that the reason antipsychotic medications have weight gain as side effects is because the pancreas also produces and responds to dopamine.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation, pleasure and reward signalling. Many psychological disorders are thought to involve dopamine imbalances and are treated by medications designed to this end.
“There are dopamine theories of schizophrenia, drug addiction, depression and neurodegenerative disorders, and we are presenting a dopamine theory of metabolism,” said lead author Despoina Aslanoglou, PhD, at the University of Pittsburgh. “We’re seeing now that it is not only interesting to study dopamine in the brain, but it is equally interesting and important to study it in the periphery.”

Senior author Zachary Freyberg, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and cell biology at Pitt, observed that the dopamine theory is not as simple or as well understood as we would like to think.

“We still don’t really understand how dopamine signals biologically,” said Dr Freyberg. “Even decades after dopamine receptors have been discovered and cloned, we still deploy this ‘magical thinking’ approach: something happens that’s good enough. We use drugs that work on dopamine receptors, but how they intersect with this ‘magical system’ is even less understood.”

The researchers found that dopamine is not only produced in the brain but also in the alpha and beta cells of the pancreas, which secrete glucagon and insulin, respectively.

Alpha cells can produce their own dopamine with no precursors in response to glucose levels, while beta cells require an L-DOPA precursor. It may be possible that alpha cells secrete dopamine for their own receptors, while also supplying it to beta cells to suppress the release of insulin.

Surprisingly, the researchers also discovered that pancreatic dopamine can affect other receptors, such as noradrenaline and adrenaline.
At low concentrations, dopamine binds to D2-like dopamine receptors, blocking the release of glucagon or insulin. At high concentrations, dopamine binds to beta-adrenergic receptors, becoming stimulatory and pushing up glucagon levels while inhibiting insulin levels by blocking alpha-adrenergic receptors.

The study revealed how blocking inhibitory dopamine receptors causes an unchecked release of insulin and glucagon, leading to metabolic disorders and eventually, obesity and diabetes. This finding will help to formulate better drugs that target the dopamine system, reducing the effect on the pancreas.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : Gender Mental Health NeurologyTags :

Women are Better ‘Mind Readers’ Than Men, Study Finds

On By ModernMedia

Women are better at ‘reading minds’ than men, finds a new study aimed at better understanding social interaction and the challenges faced by people with autism. 

Sometimes known in the field of psychology as ‘mentalising‘, the process is when people try to ascertain what others are really thinking, for example when they are sarcastic or even lying. Mind-reading has some basis in neuroscience: for example, some research indicates that sensitivity to social interactions is associated with the posterior superior temporal sulcus, an area of the brain which is also known to process biological motion. Everybody has some proficiency with mind reading, and some are inherently better than others. However, some lack the ability to a point where it becomes difficult to function in society, for example in autism.

The study made use of a self-report questionnaire asking participants to rate how well, for example, they could relate to others. It used four questions, each with ratings from one to four, giving a maximum total score of 16. The researchers determined that women scored higher than men on the questionnaire, and also confirmed the challenges reported by those with autism. 

Senior author Dr Punit Shah, at the University of Bath’s Department of Psychology explained: “We will all undoubtedly have had experiences where we have felt we have not connected with other people we are talking to, where we’ve perceived that they have failed to understand us, or where things we’ve said have been taken the wrong way. Much of how we communicate relies on our understanding of what others are thinking, yet this is a surprisingly complex process that not everyone can do.”

Dr Shah emphasised that there is a different between mind-reading and empathy, saying: “Mind-reading refers to understanding what other people are thinking, whereas empathy is all about understanding what others are feeling. The difference might seem subtle but is critically important and involves very different brain networks. By focussing carefully on measuring mind-reading, without confusing it with empathy, we are confident that we have just measured mind-reading. And, when doing this, we consistently find that females reported greater mind-reading abilities than their male counterparts.”

Lead researcher, Rachel Clutterbuck, emphasised the clinical importance of the questionnaire. She said: “This new test, which takes under a minute to complete, has important utility in clinical settings. It is not always obvious if someone is experiencing difficulties understanding and responding to others—and many people have learnt techniques which can reduce the appearance of social difficulties, even though these remain.

“This work has great potential to better understand the lived experience of people with mind-reading difficulties, such as those with autism, whilst producing a precise quantitative score that may be used by clinicians to identify individuals who may benefit from interventions.”

Dr Shah added that this study was about helping to understand mind-reading capabilities, and had created a freely available questionnaire for other efforts in this regard.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Rachel A. Clutterbuck et al, Development and validation of the Four-Item Mentalising Index., Psychological Assessment (2021). DOI: 10.1037/pas0001004

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

LSD Shown to Heighten Sociability in Mice

On By ModernMedia

Scientists at McGill University have discovered that mice micro-dosed with LSD have an increased level of sociability, pointing to a mechanism by which the drug can influence behaviour at these low concentrations.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered by accident while developing stimulants, and was first used to study psychotic states. There was initially great interest in and use of LSD for psychiatric treatment, but the harmful and lasting side-effects resulted in it steadily being outlawed. However, recent anecdotal evidence of individuals self-administering micro-doses of LSD to improve cognitive functioning have helped spur renewed interest in the famous drug.To investigate the ways LSD might be working on the brain, the McGill University researchers dosed mice with low levels of LSD over seven days, and observed a measurable increase in sociability.

This is useful as a main outcome of the study is a mechanism that describes the increased feelings of empathy and awareness that users of LSD describe.

Co-lead author Prof Nahum Sonenberg at McGill University, world renowned expert in the molecular biology of diseases, explained: “The fact that LSD binds the 5-HT2A receptor was previously known. The novelty of this research is to have identified that the prosocial effects of LSD activate the 5-HT2 receptors, which in-turn activate the excitatory synapses of the AMPA receptor as well as the protein complex mTORC1, which has been demonstrated to be dysregulated in diseases with social deficits such as autism spectrum disorder.

“Their next research goal is treating mutant mice with behavioural deficits mimicking human psychological pathologies, and to find out if micro-dosed LSD or some derivative could be a safe and effective therapeutic option.

“Social interaction is a fundamental characteristic of human behaviour,” noted co-lead author Dr Gabriella Gobbi, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill and psychiatrist at the McGill University Health Centre. “These hallucinogenic compounds, which, at low doses, are able to increase sociability may help to better understand the pharmacology and neurobiology of social behavior and, ultimately, to develop and discover novel and safer drugs for mental disorders.”

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Danilo De Gregorio et al, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) promotes social behavior through mTORC1 in the excitatory neurotransmission, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2020705118

Categories : Addiction Mental HealthTags :

Happier Memories in Teens Linked to Less Alcohol and Marijuana Use

On By ModernMedia

A study of teenage American students has found that happy childhood memories, along with a positive view of the present and outlook for the future are associated with reduced alcohol use, binge drinking and marijuana use. 

Researchers say that action is needed because COVID restrictions have left teenagers isolated and vulnerable. Quarantining results in anxiety, stress and feelings of loneliness in children and adolescents, and the closure of schools has also taken away mental health support systems which some teenagers may rely on.

John Mark Froiland of Purdue University said: “School often seems a source of stress and anxiety to students. This puts them at greater risk of not participating in lessons, getting lower grades and of substance misuse. Many teenagers also aren’t engaging with online learning during Covid or have lower engagement levels.

“But they’re more likely to be enthusiastic learners and not use drink and drugs if teachers take time to build more positive relationships with them. They can help students see that everything they’re learning is truly valuable. Parents have a role to play too.”

The study was based on questionnaires completed by 1961 student participants in San Francisco, of which 53% were female. The researchers examined how happy the students believed their childhood was, how happy they were currently and how optimistic they were about their futures.

In addition, they looked at alcohol and marijuana use over the past 30 days and binge use, as well as academic grades, behaviour during lessons and motivation.

Positive attitudes towards the past, present and future was associated with lower alcohol use, binge drinking and marijuana use, while the reverse was true for negative attitudes.

An optimistic outlook increased the likelihood that they would be motivated and focus on learning. Other findings included drinking being associated with marijuana use, and that girls had better behavioural engagement than boys.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Froiland, J.M., et al. (2020) Positive and negative time attitudes, intrinsic motivation, behavioral engagement and substance use among urban adolescents. Addiction Research & Theory. doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2020.1857740.

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

Religiosity-based Stress Linked to Cardiovascular Risk in South Asians

On By ModernMedia

In a new study, the Study on Stress, Spirituality and Health (SSSH) linked proteomics from religiosity-based stress to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk markers. This study marks the first investigation of protein levels associated with religion and spirituality in any group.

South Asians have an elevated CVD risk compared to other racial/ethnic groups, with the biological risk factors attributable to type 2 diabetes risk factors, and the rest stemming from traditional risk factors which show no enhancements as compared to other racial/ethnic groups.

“Before we can develop the best interventions to reduce CVD disparities, we need to understand the biological pathways through which health disparities are produced,” said principal investigator and co-senior author Alexandra Shields, PhD, associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). “As this study shows, psychosocial factors—and religious or spiritual struggles in particular—can affect biological processes that lead to CVD in this high-risk population. Spirituality can also serve as a resource for resilience and have a protective effect. Given that many of the minority communities that experience higher levels of CVD also report higher levels of religiosity and spirituality, studies such as the SSSH may help identify new leverage points, such as spiritually focused psychotherapy for those in spiritual distress, that could reduce risk of CVD for such individuals.”

The study had 100 South Asian participants, 50 diagnosed with CVD and 50 without. The participants were drawn from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study, which is following 1164 South Asian participants to investigate the factors that lead to heart disease among this racial/ethnic group. Three proteins were found to be involved in CVD risk after adjustment for diabetes (Contactin-5 [CNTN5], Low affinity immunoglobulin gamma Fc region receptor II-a [FCGR2A], and Complement factor B [CFB]), and of these, the expression of two (Contactin-5 and Complement factor B) were slightly modified by religious struggles interacting with adverse life events.

The results indicate that there may be unique protein expressions associated with CVD among individuals of South Asian descent, and these associations may be affected by religious struggles, such as feeling abandoned by God. “Understanding the pathways of this mechanism at the molecular level using proteomics technology is crucial to developing potential interventions that can help reduce CVD incidence in this population,” says Long H. Ngo, PhD., lead author and co-director of Biostatistics in the Division of General Medicine at BIDMC and associate professor of Medicine at HMS.

Co-senior author Towia Libermann, PhD, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, added: “The kinds of blood-based protein biomarkers used in this study are particularly effective in assessing CVD risk because they carry clinical information about risk of disease and are the most commonly used molecules for diagnostic applications.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Long H. Ngo et al, Plasma protein expression profiles, cardiovascular disease, and religious struggles among South Asians in the MASALA study, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79429-1

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Depression May be Influenced by Metabolism

On By ModernMedia

A study by researchers from University of California San Diego School of Medicine and from the Netherlands, has shown that major depressive disorder (MDD) may be predicted by metabolism, in the form of certain metabolites.

MDD is one of the most common disorders, with a lifetime prevalence of 20.6% in the United States. For those with recurrent major depressive disorder (rMDD), the risk is 80% over five years.

MDD is characterised by any combination of feelings of sadness or hopelessness, anger or frustration, loss of interest, sleep disturbances, anxiety, slowed or difficulty thinking, suicidal thoughts and unexplained pain such as backaches.

“This is evidence for a mitochondrial nexus at the heart of depression,” said senior author Prof Robert K Naviaux, at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “It’s a small study, but it is the first to show the potential of using metabolic markers as predictive clinical indicators of patients at greatest risk—and lower risk—for recurring bouts of major depressive symptoms.”

Recruiting 68 participants who were in remission for rMDD and not on antidepressants, the researchers found a range of molecules in participants’ blood that were up to 90% predictive of relapse in 30 months. The most predictive molecules consisted of certain lipids and purines.

Purines are produced from molecules such as ATP and ADP (major cellular energy storage molecules), and also have a role in signalling in stressed cells.The researchers found that in subjects with rMDD, certain metabolites in six metabolic pathways resulted in the alteration of key cellular activities.

“The findings revealed an underlying biochemical signature in remitted rMDD that set diagnosed patients apart from healthy controls,” Naviaux said. “These differences are not visible through ordinary clinical assessment, but suggest that the use of metabolomics—the biological study of metabolites—could be a new tool for predicting which patients are most vulnerable to a recurrence of depressive symptoms.”

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Roel J. T. Mocking et al. Metabolic features of recurrent major depressive disorder in remission, and the risk of future recurrence, Translational Psychiatry (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-01182-w

Categories : AddictionTags :

Withdrawal Symptoms of Discontinuing Medical Cannabis

On By ModernMedia

A new study on the long terms effects of having used medical cannabis show that over half of people who used it experience withdrawal symptoms between use. And about one in ten experienced worsening alterations in sleep, mood, mental state, energy and appetite over two years.

Patients who use cannabis usually turn to it because of the failure of other pain medications, or to avoid the long-term risks of opioid use. However, the perception that it is “harmless” is incorrect, as it has cannabinoids that act on receptors in the brain, and from which the brain can experience withdrawal symptoms. This can even lead to cannabis use disorder.

Addiction psychologist Lara Coughlin, PhD, who led the analysis said, “Some people report experiencing significant benefits from medical cannabis, but our findings suggest a real need to increase awareness about the signs of withdrawal symptoms developing to decrease the potential downsides of cannabis use, especially among those who experience severe or worsening symptoms over time.”

After they had gone a significant time without cannabis, the 527 participants in the study were asked whether they had any one of 15 symptoms, ranging from irritability to nausea. Using an analytic method, they empirically grouped them into three groups ranging from mild or moderate symptoms to severe, with most of the symptoms. They then surveyed the patients again after one year and then again after two years. Those in the mild class showed the most stability in symptoms over time.

Younger participants were more likely to be in the severe group, and were more likely to have a worsening trajectory. Coughlin concluded that patients seeking cannabis use for pain need to discuss it with their health care providers, and seek psychosocial treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

Source: Medical Express

Journal information: Coughlin, LN et al. Progression of cannabis withdrawal symptoms in people using medical cannabis for chronic pain. Addiction. 2021. DOI: 10.1111/add.15370

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Autism Theory Treats its Characteristic Traits as Favoured by Society

On By ModernMedia

For decades, scientists have fruitlessly sought a unifying aetiology for autism and an explanation for its prevalence, but now a new theoretical model describes the condition as a combination of traits that are common in autism and which are socially valued, combined with co-occurring disabilities.

An estimated 1 in 54 people have autism, which has been on the increase in developed countries. TA Meridian McDonald, PhD, a research instructor in Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said: “Up until now there have been a lot of theories about the possible causes of autism but none of those theories account for the majority of autism cases. There are also a lot of theories as to why the prevalence of autism has been increasing in the population but, to date, there hasn’t been a theory that provides an explanatory model that accounts for all of those phenomena, including the genetics, social history, or characteristics of autism.”

She has worked on autism for 25 years, culminating in a theory called, “The Broader Autism Phenotype Constellation-Disability Matrix Paradigm (BAPCO-DMAP) Theory”, a focuses on the genetic basis of autism in line with current science but shifts the emphasis to positive traits selected for by events occurring over the past century.”The BAPCO-DMAP theory describes how people are attracted to other people who are very similar. They are attracted to certain traits that are very common in the population, and this leads to offspring who are more likely to have certain traits, as well as a greater intensity of traits,” said McDonald.

“The [BAPCO] traits are not what people expect. They expect the traits to be about challenges or difficulties, but instead there are six main traits—increased attention, increased memory, a preference for the object world vs. the social world and their environment, increased nonconformity, increased differences in sensory and perception, as well as systemising.”

These BAPCO traits are thus not necessarily negative, and can be combined with social skills. Counterintuitively, babies with increased memory and attention spans learn language later, because babies normally rely on their tiny attention span to break words down into their simplest sounds. With greater memory and attention spans, infants engage in echolalia, speaking long phrases without understanding them.

“You can often see children with autism engaging in sense-making activities, such as watching the same show over and over and memorising information,” McDonald said.The BAPCO traits are not by themselves significant impediments, but when combined with a disability such as an information processing disorder, then the combination leads to greater difficulties.

According to McDonald, the increased prevalence of autism in developed countries is due to men and women with BAPCO traits being able to pursue similar careers and passions, as opposed to being limited by circumstance, and results in relationships. This effectively concentrates BAPCO traits in any children they have.Since the BAPCO traits are socially valued, there simply is no “cure” for them, according to McDonald.”When we talk about autism we need to address the developmental disabilities that these individuals are experiencing but also find way to support and enhance their broader autism trait constellations,” she concluded.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: T.A. Meridian McDonald, The broader autism phenotype constellations–disability matrix paradigm: Theoretical model for autism and the broader autism phenotype, Medical Hypotheses (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110456